I hate and I love.

How much I hunger

for the days when I was younger,

for the days when  I was really free,

for the days when I was a real me.

And what is happening now?

Has the world turned upside down?

I do not say any more “Wow!”

Nothing surprises me.

I can only realize

this horrible situation

with discomfort and even frustration.

Am I on another stage?

Is it connected with my age?

I don’t think so.

I can see today the youth

who can’t find the truth.

Isn’t it strange that

having two higher educations

I am on the edge of starvation?

Isn’t it strange that

having worked all my life

I have to think how to survive?

No one cares about my life,

no one worries if I should live or die.

I hate those unfair rules

which were proclaimed for the fools.

I love my motherland,

but the life here I can’t withstand.

I forgot the word “hurray”.

That was another day.

My future is unpredictable as weather.

I am like a feather,

don’t know where to fly.

It seems all is a lie.

I don’t know where this time the wind will blow.

Where is my spirits flow?

I don’t know how to live,

I don’t know whom to believe.

The world has greatly changed.

For someone it’s not strange.

It’s only strange that I am still alive

and  have to think how to survive.

Who will tell me what to do?

Should I be true with those who cheat,

with those who treat

me and others as a toy?

They are very much annoyed

to listen to the truth,

but they are not confused

to rob, to demand,

to occupy my motherland.

They even use God’s name

as a cover for their crimes.

They do not hear the church bells chimes,

they only hear their own voice,

leaving the majority with no choice.

My voice is crying in the wildness.

Forgetting about gladness

I have to know sadness,

to learn the rules of a new dirty game.

Isn’t it the biggest shame?

I have no more strength to fight

but only to wait for the light

at the end of that tunnel,

in other words: for my funeral.

Where is the way out?

It looks as there is only one: to pray,

to calm my soul for another stay.

 

©Larisa Rzhepishevska

December 2^nd,2010